


Day 020

by Josh_the_Bard



Series: A Year in Kirkwall [20]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22343014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josh_the_Bard/pseuds/Josh_the_Bard
Relationships: Merrill/Noll (Dragon Age OC)
Series: A Year in Kirkwall [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589257
Kudos: 3





	Day 020

Peter and Gale cleared the table once dinner was over and Mathias made some excuse of tending to a broken chair or something. He gave Noll a smile and a wink and then disappeared deeper into the house.

“Merrill,” Noll said, standing, “would you care to take a walk with me?”

Merrill felt a little flutter, as though the butterflies had all switched sides of her stomach. It was an odd metaphor but it felt apt. Although Merrill was pretty sure she didn’t have enough room in her belly for so many butterflies.

“Yes of course,” she blurted before the silence became awkward, she hopped. “Your family is lovely,” she added as Noll put on their cloak. “They’re so nice and happy. Not like most families I’ve met who fight all the time. I left my family when I came into my magic so I don’t really know what it’s like to grow up around family.”

“You lived a long time among another clan,” Noll said. “Did they not become your family?”

“I never really fit in with them. I cared for them but they never understood me.” Like Paul. He was so terrified of Merrill the last time they had met that he ran towards certain death to escape her. When she had never done anything to hurt the clan.

“Sorry,” Noll said. “I can tell this is not a pleasant topic for you. Come, there is a place I want to show you.” They lead Merrill down a side alley into a place she had never been before. The cobblestones here were cracked with roots growing through them and a few brown, dried-up leaves drifted through the alleyway. And the air actually smelled fresher here, Merrill couldn’t place the scent but it was something floral.

Flowery was a much better word for the smell of flowers when Merrill thought about it. Floral should be the smell of the floor which probably smelled of feet. If there was a smell that was nothing like flowers it was feet.

Something was… not wrong but something was definitely… unusual. It took Merrill a moment to work out what it was.

“This is normally the part where someone tried to mug us,” Merrill said looking with suspicion at the windows overhead. That was where muggers usually liked to hide.

“Here among our people, you need not fear attack,” Noll said. “We take care of our people and especially our friends.” They emerged from the alley and into a haphazard courtyard. The sort that came about when no one bothered to put a building somewhere rather than by any design. In the middle was a tree with crimson leaves. Even in a world full of magical wonders Merrill had never seen a tree change its leaves in late spring.

“What is this tree? It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“This is a special Venadahl, just for my friends,” Noll said. “Here we meet in secret to plan how to strike at the shemlen who kick us because we’re lower than them. This is our safe place. I come here often to get away from everything, and lose myself in the beauty of the leaves.”

They took Merrill’s hand, turning it over to look at her painted nails.

“It is rare for me to find beauty that compares outside of this place.” 

Merrill looked into Noll’s blue eyes. She could see the kindness and intense caring they held inside. There was a hardness there as well, but it didn’t close the kindness behind it.

She was suddenly very aware of their closeness. Noll took her chin in their hand and tilted her face towards theirs. Merrill’s heart cried out for her to surrender to them. She had seen how happy she could be as a part of Noll’s family. She parted her lips and leaned closer.

“My it’s getting warm out here, isn’t it?” she blurted.

Noll pulled back, frowning.

Merrill cursed her stupid mouth. Why had she said that? She had to fix it.

“I only meant that, with the summer coming, the night’s are getting warmer than they were last week, of course everything was on fire last week so its probably colder not warmer, at least until I-we made it rain, then it cooled right down.” She was talking about the weather, the thing everyone agreed was the most boring topic of conversation imaginable. Noll was not only going to thing she didn’t like them but that she was a terrible bore.

“I, may have tried to take things too quickly,” Noll said. “Forgive me, I am rarely as patient as I should be.”

“No it's not that, I don’t, I mean I do, I mean...” Merrill could think of nothing right to say and just sort of… stood there, mouth opening and closing like a fish. She felt her cheeks burning. Noll turned away from her and she did the only thing she could think to do. She ran back out the way she had come, through the alley and into the maine Alianage.

It was dark out and she wasn’t sure which way her house was from here. She half hopped Noll would chase after her to help and help walk her home. But how would that conversation go? ‘Sorry I blathered on about the weather when you tried to kiss me and then ran away. By the way, could you help me find my way home because I’m an idiot who can’t tell her rights from her lefts.’

Whatever Noll was doing it did not seem to involve chasing after her and Merrill ended up wandering in circles until she literally tripped over her twine. She picked a direction and followed it but she chose the wrong way and ended back at Noll’s house. She yanked on the twine until the end came out from under the door and then she turned and ran home as fast as she could. Rolling the twine back into a ball as she went.

Tears were streaming down her face when she reached her house and she wasn't sure if she was panting from the run or sobbing. She slammed the door behind her and flung herself on her bed and cried until she was too tired to keep crying.

Noll was going to think she hated them. They would be too angry or embarrassed to speak to her ever again and she would never get to see Gale or Mathias or little Peter again. Like always, she had managed to say and do the absolute worst thing imaginable. After she had turned on Hawke in the fade she thought she had ruined her one chance for happiness, then the Creators had given her a second chance, but she had ruined that too. It was time to face the truth.

She didn’t deserve happiness and it was safer to stop hopping.


End file.
